One is Silver
by Virgo
Summary: Barney has a mysterious past. This 4th of July, he goes out for beer and comes back with... friends? Old friends?


"Oh, hi, guys," said Marshall, opening the door to the apartment in Dowisetrepla. He was wearing an apron and a Uncle Sam hat. "Happy Independence Day, by the way. I'm just putting together some guacamole... take a seat."

"Ooh," said Ted, pursing his lips and throwing his arms up in the air. "Branching out from pancakes, are you? Learning how to cook?" He threw himself down in the easy chair, sprawling out.

Marshall, back in the kitchen, sighed and rolled his eyes. "No, I'm taking it out of the bag. God, Ted, you know Lily wouldn't let me do that."

"At least not at one of her dinner parties," said Ted.

"You're three days too late," Robin muttered, but everyone – Barney, Ted, and Marshall – looked at her with blank eyes. "Canada day?"

"So that's why you were wearing maple leafs on Wednesday!" said Barney. He stopped, stood very still, and shook his head. "Not a real holiday, Sherbatsky."

Robin shook her head at him, saying nothing. Robin sat at the edge of couch and said, "Where is Lily, anyway?"

"Showering," said Marshall. "Shh, be quiet she might..."

Lily came bolting out of the master bedroom, wet hair still dripping, wearing a halter-top sundress resplendent in red, white, and blue. "You guys are early!" ("It's okay, it's okay," she said to herself, hoping that her guests didn't see.) "I hope you made yourselves comfortable." She beamed at her friends-turned-guests in a manner that Robin hoped wouldn't strain a muscle.

"Yeah, we're fine," said Ted. "You have any beer?"

"Oh, no!" said Lily, hands on her face in panic. "We forgot to buy beer!"

"Can we get Molson ?" asked Robin, hopeful.

"No, Robin," said Barney, scoffing. "This is an American holiday. We need beer with patriotic," he paused dramatically. "Sparks!" he yelled, and he did his standard magic trick. The one that had left a scorch mark in Ted's apartment, the one that had earned Barney an intervention.

It was then that time stood still. And Lily grew three feet taller. She marched over to Barney, stared at him for a moment, then marched over to her purse. She pulled out forty dollars and shoved it at his chest. Barney took the cash and winced. "You will leave this apartment right now and go buy beer," said Lily in her teacher voice. "You will leave all your pyrotechnics at the liquor store. You hear me?" She took the lapels of his coat and shook. "You hear me?"

"Yes, ma'am," Barney whimpered. He turned towards the door and opened it. He looked back forlornly. "But... it's the Fourth of July..."

"Go!" said Lily. Barney went. Lily marched into the kitchen. Robin and Ted looked at each other.

"Even if it's the family you chose..." said Robin, trying not to laugh.

"Yeah," said Ted. "It's still a family holiday."

"I want a beer," Marshall whimpered as he brought the chips and dip into the living room. He tried to say it so only Ted and Robin could hear, but Lily had chosen that moment to bring a glass of wine to  
Robin.

"Where is Barney? He better not be buying more fireworks." Lily put her hands on her hips and then looked at Robin, who was just about to take a sip of wine. "Robin should go get him," said Lily.

"Yeah!" said Marshall, trying to look as if there was no ulterior motive for him to agree with Lily. He twisted in place and did his best not to meet Robin's eyes.

"Why do I have to go?" asked Robin. "I have booze! And besides, he's only been gone, like, a minute." She pointed at her glass of wine, then leaned back in her seat, as if resting her case.

"Because I need Marshall to put together the vegetable platter," said Lily matter-of-factly.

"And why not Ted?" demanded Robin. Ted choked on the chip he put in his mouth at the wrong moment.

"Because I need him to help me find the... Independence Day Parade on cable." Marshall snatched up the remote and the tv listings quickly, making it impossible to double check his assertion.

Robin looked at them skeptically. "I've never heard of it."

"Yeah," said Ted. "I can do that." He nodded assertively.

"So, that leaves you," said Lily. "Now go!"

Robin sighed, rolled her eyes. She looked at her wine and said, "I'll be back for you."

Robin stopped before she left and looked at Ted. He shrugged at her, and she ducked out of the door. Ted immediately got up and made a beeline over to the kitchen to confer with his oldest friends. "So, are you trying to hook Robin and Barney up or something? Not that I care or anything, it's no big deal." Ted scoffed and tried to examine his manicured nails as if to emphasize that he really didn't care. It only lasted a moment, however, before he slammed his hands down on the bar of the kitchen. "No, really, what's going on?"

"You'll have to ask Barney and Robin," said Lily magnanimously.

"Oh, come on," said Marshall. "You can't keep any other secret, but you're going to keep this one?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. Barney is in love with Robin."

"I knew it!" said Ted, pumping his fist into the air. "He didn't say as much, but when he realized Robin and I were friends with benefits..."

Behind them, the door slammed open and shut. Ted turned and Marshall and Lily rushed out of the kitchen to see Robin pacing around the living room. "He hugged her! A hug from Barney, is like, totally intimate, right? And then he hugged that guy. That guy! Barney doesn't hug his bros, let alone some guy stranger at some block party!" Robin bit her fist, trying to keep from saying something.

"What do you mean?" asked Lily. "What did you see?"

"Barney didn't get very far. He's at the park across the street from your apartment, where there's a block party going on? You can probably see yourself from your bedroom window." Robin sat on the couch and gulped at her wine. Lily sat with her as Ted and Marshall scrambled over each other to get to the front bedroom. Marshall threw open the window and Ted stuck his head out, and had to twist to also accommodate Marshall. They looked out and Ted said, "I don't see anything."

"Let's go," said Marshall. They pulled themselves out of the window and moved back to the living room, where Barney was standing with three cases of beer and a woman and a man holding hands.

"Hey, guys!" said Barney. "These are old friends of mine! They live in your building!"

"Barney!" cried Ted ("Act natural," he whispered). He raised an eyebrow, looking at the man and the woman holding hands who looked slightly uncomfortable, but were handling it well. "You... brought friends?"

"Yeah, Ted," said Barney, scoffing. "That's what I just said."

"I thought we were his only friends," said Marshall in a low voice, eying the new couple suspiciously.

"I'm Lily," said Lily, and reached out to shake the hand of the woman. "And this is..." She began to gesture over to Marshall when her welcoming look turned a bit to horror as she looked at the woman's left hand and realized... "Barney, you brought _married_ friends?"

"_We're_ definitely his only married friends," said Marshall, panicking.

The woman laughed awkwardly, gently taking her hand back. "I'm Nita, and this is my husband, Kit. We're old friends of Barney's."

Barney had been rolling his eyes at the whole proceedings, and went into the kitchen and came back with a soda for Nita and a beer for Kit. He touched Nita on the shoulder, and pointed to love seat and then offered Kit the other seat.

Just as Barney was about to sit down on the arm of the love seat, Ted looked back and forth between the horrified look on Marshall's face, the concern on Lilly's and these two strangers, said, "Excuse me," and pushed Barney off the arm and towards the kitchen. "We'll get the vegetable platter!"

"I made some roasted red pepper hummus just this morning," said Nita, she smiled wanly at Lily. "I could run upstairs and get it for you? I know what it's like to have last minute guests."

Kit took a swig of his beer and set it down on a coaster. "I'll get it," said Kit, and stood.

Nita laughed and held her hands up trying to convey her uncomfortable acceptance of this gesture. "I'm pregnant, and my dear husband thinks I might break."

"_Pregnant_ married friends?" Lily's jaw set, and she turned on her heel and marched into the kitchen.

Kit sat down again, deciding that this was probably a more hostile environment than they had originally anticipated. "You're an... insular group... aren't you?" Kit said, looking at Marshall.

Marshall was staring wide eyed at his guests. "I'm a lawyer!" he said, and then he looked around, silently begging someone, anyone, to come back to the living room. Luckily, he saw Robin at just that moment. "Haaaave you met Robin?" He pushed Robin forward towards the guests. "I'mgoingtogohelpcarrythings."

Robin frowned, and watched Marshall sprint into the kitchen. She sat down on the easy chair and picked up her wine. "They don't need everyone to do the vegetable...whatever. I'm Robin," she said, holding out her hand.

"I'm Nita," she said, shaking Robin's hand. "Do they do this often?"

"Do what?" asked Robin, turning towards Kit.

Kit shook her hand, and said, "Panic when they meet new people."

"Not usually, I guess it depends on the context," said Robin, draining her wine glass. "You're a spectacle. Barney doesn't have relationships. At least not outside of us, and maybe his mother."

"We're old friends of his," said Nita. "We met summer after junior year of high school, in Hempstead."

"How did you meet?" asked Robin.

"It's a long story," said Kit, but he leaned back in his seat, sipped his beer, and began to tell it.

Over in the kitchen, Barney was in the middle of intense scrutiny; he, however, continued to roll his eyes and sipped the scotch and soda he had poured for himself since being dragged into the kitchen. "Since when do you pick up married chicks and their husbands?" asked Ted.

"A pregnant married chick," said Lily. "Pregnant!"

"Well, it is on my list." Barney paused for a moment to let that sink in, but then plowed on. "But seriously, Nita and Kit are old friends, I don't see what the deal is." Barney swilled his drink.

"You barely commit to us, how can you commit to them as your friends?" demanded Lily.

Marshall's fist was practically in his mouth, to keep from... something. "I mean, I thought what we had was special, man? Did you marry them too?"

"God, Marshall, no," said Barney, shaking his head. "Guys, we met at neighborhood party in Hempstead, where we grew up. Nita and Kit went to one high school, I went to the other, and we met the summer after our junior years of high school."

"Yeah," said Kit, speaking to Robin in the living room. "We were at Tom Swale and Carl Romeo's house – they were a mentors to all three of us, but we hadn't met until that Fourth of July party – it's kind of amazing that we met up again today, of all days. I can't believe we've been missing each other like this."

"We discovered that we had a mutual fascination for... astronomy," said Nita.

"And the ocean," said Kit. "The ocean is what we really bonded over – saving the whales."

"It was a save-the-whales campaign," continued Barney in the kitchen. "This was long before I suited up, and when I was becoming, ever so slowly, hippie Barney, concerned with saving the world instead of making a name for myself."

"Barney was really great at it," said Nita. "Better than I ever was."

"I always just tagged along when it came to whales specifically," said Kit. "But when it comes to cleaning up toxics? I was always really instrumental. Barney did really good work."

"Still does," said Nita, smiling.

"Wait," said Robin. "You know what Barney does for a living?"

Nita and Kit looked at each other. "He works for Goliath National Bank," said Kit.

"Yeah, which is a division of Ultrasoft, which is reputedly an evil company," said Robin.

"Don't they put the fuzz on tennis balls?" asked Nita, smiling coyly. "But, anyway, I was talking about his volunteering at the soup kitchen. He told us all about it."

"And then we were friends through high school, as much as you could be friends when you lived on opposite sides of town," said Barney, shrugging. "We hung out sometimes. Went to separate colleges. Got invited to their wedding, didn't go because they were making i_the biggest mistake of their lives/i_ – found them again today. That's the whole story."

That was not the whole story.

The whole story was this:

"Since you guys are being assigned to the Mars team, replacing Barney," said Carl, looking at Nita and Kit, "Tom and I decided to bring Barney in to help with the Jones Inlet incursion, the month-to-month management and improvement of it." Carl gestured across the table. "Barney, meet Nita and Kit. Nita and Kit, meet Barney."

Nita reached across the table to shake Barney's hand. He was blonde, and his hair was curiously long, and instead of wearing jeans and a t-shirt, he was wearing swim trunks and a white tank top. Kit also shook his hand.

"We don't want to keep you from the festivities for too long," he gestured outside at the barbecue in full swing. "But I wanted to make this a formal introduction, because I think this is an opportunity for you guys to work together like..." he hesitated for a moment. "Like adult wizards," he finished.

The pronouncement was a sober one, and left Nita, Kit and Barney picking at their food at the edges of the party. "This sucks," said Barney, finally.

"We knew it was coming," said Nita, sighing. "Post-Ordeal levels fade, and...."

"Yeah," said Kit. "And we get specialized and become adults."

"It won't be so bad," said Nita. "We'll introduce you to S'reee and show you the spell diagram and..."

"But..." said Barney. "I want to be special, not specialized."

"Yeah, that would be awesome," said Nita, smiling gently.

"Yeah, awesome," echoed Barney.

That summer, and over the following school year, they did learn to be adult wizards together. It was not quite a three-way partnership, but Kit explained to Barney the way he constructed the Jones Inlet spell, Nita explained the way she built the spell that was overkill – but just in case, some company in the future creates some sort of pollutant which did mutate like a virus – and Barney taught the two of them what the knew about astronomy, especially Mars. As time went on, it became clearer their specialties – Barney became an expert on pollution, all sorts.

"Ultrasoft is seriously evil, guys," said Barney, as they sat on a cluster of small boulders on the moon. "They're developing something – and the runoff changes daily, not quite in a viral way? But pretty close. It's absolutely heinous. S'reee says it's not effecting the whales quite yet, but she's not sure if the birth rates are what they're supposed to be."

Kit became an expert on the urban habitat, especially how new buildings impacted the health and livelihoods of people and animals. "I think..." said Kit, as they sat high in the bleachers after a football game at Barney's school, far from where other people could hear them, "I think I need to be an environmental engineer. They're rebuilding at Ground Zero, you know – but I'm not sure they're doing it right. The things we learned from the Ancients on Mars..." Nita leaned into him, pulling him into a one-armed hug, and Kit melted – all past fear and anxiety from Mars leaking out of him.

Barney knew then that they were an item, even if they didn't know it themselves.

Nita grew more and more clairvoyant, in stranger and stranger ways. She didn't quite start talking like the koi, or Peach, but... "I think I have to put it to good use," she said, while sitting at Tom and Carl's kitchen table. "It was something I was thinking about but wasn't sure..." She paused for along moment, and Barney almost told her to spit it out – Kit took her hand in support. "Meterology?" she said, and the silence was very short, as it dawned on everyone how perfect that was, and the hugging and shouting and congratulating was infectious after that.

Barney graduated first. Nita and Kit attended his graduation in a stuffy gymnasium, and they hugged him silly afterwards. The following Saturday, Nita and Kit accepted their diplomas, and Barney cheered the loudest from high in the stands. Barney stayed in New York – it was the only home he's ever known, he said – and went to New York University for Biological Sciences with a focus on Toxics. Nita and Kit went to Colorado – Kit to the University of Colorado, Nita to Colorado State. They got married the weekend after their graduation four years later, and Barney brought Shannon to their wedding, introducing her as the girl he was going to save the world with, and that they were joining the Peace Corps.

Which brings us, nearly, back to the present.

"We could have couple friends," said Marshall, hopefully. "They live in our building but not on our floor! That's totally far enough away not to run into the platinum rule."

Lily grabbed Marshall's arm and looked up at him excitedly. "I want couple friends," she said. But then she frowned. "God, Barney, you're going to tell me that they live too close to us, and we can't be friends because of the stupid platinum rule, aren't you?"

"Chill," said Barney. "Nita and Kit are awesome. You have no idea how awesome they are. They are so awesome that they are exceptions to the platinum rule." His grip on his glass was probably tighter than strictly necessary to keep it from slipping from his fingers, but he desperately wanted Ted, Marshall, Lily and Robin (especially Robin) to love Nita and Kit as much as he did. "In fact, how about this? They're actually starting their own environmental engineering firm."

"And how does that make them awesome?" asked Ted, incredulously.

Barney smirked. "Wait for it. This is going to be so awesome, you're going to hug Kit just for existing." He poured himself another scotch, slowly.

"Get on with it!" said Marshal, who was clearly greatly anticipating the announcement.

"I said wait for it," said Barney. He took a sip of his drink and sighed. He pointed with the scotch in his hand. "Marshall, they need a lawyer. An environmental lawyer. Ted? You know what they need? They need an architect to design their offices. And maybe they'll even make Mosbius their recommended architect. Lily? Nita needs a friend, a married woman friend – she's having a baby, after all. And for Robin, if she ever gets tired of that morning talk show, though she's fabulous on that? They could probably use a public relations machine like her."

Marshall squealed and hugged Barney first. Then he rushed into the other room, most likely to give Kit a hug. Lily ran after him, probably also to embrace her new found friend. Ted and Barney looked at each other across the kitchen and Barney grinned. "You're a good guy," said Ted.

"I'm awesome," said Barney, agreeing and refuting at the same time. He sipped his scotch.

"You'll have to tell Robin some day," said Ted. "I want you to."

Barney choked on his drink. "Okay, Bro, whatever you say." Barney tried to brush it off. He grinned again. "You know what the best part is?"

"No, what?"

"Nita has a younger sister, who is very much on the marital market, if you know what I mean." Barney winked and nodded, getting his point across clearly.

Ted laughed, threw his arm over Barney's shoulder, and brought him back to the living room.

Late that night, Barney walked Nita and Kit up to their apartment, two floors above Lily and Marshall's. "Thank you for introducing us to your friends," said Nita. "It was really great getting to know them."

"No big deal," said Barney, as Kit unlocked the door. Both Barney and Nita followed Kit in. "I really think that Marshall is the man for the lawyer job, but I think we'll have to be careful about the wizardry."

Kit flipped on a light, and Nita made her way over to the kitchen, taking a cup from one of the many moving boxes and using the faucet to get herself a cup of water. "What do you mean?" said Kit.

"I think Marshall is a sensitive. Given enough time, he might figure us out. He already believes in big foot and krakens, ufos and ghosts."

Nita nodded, her eyes distant. "That might be a problem," she said. "Or it could be an asset."

Kit moved a box off of the couch and sat. "Thanks for convincing us to move back to Manhattan, Barney," said Kit. "Life was comfortable in Colorado, but I think you're right – we're meant to be here to help you dismantle Ultrasoft."

"Thanks for finding us this apartment, too," said Nita, grinning. "I mean, it is a buyer's market, but this is perfect for raising our kid."

Barney grinned. "I'd propose a toast, but I think we're all toasted out after Drunk Ted got the idea in his head. I'll leave you guys to it. Goodnight."

"Good night, Barney," said Nita, joining Kit on the couch.

"Oh, wait," said Barney, turning around and pointing his finger at his old friends. "Want to go out to see S'reee tomorrow?"

"Yeah," said Kit, as he looked at Nita's grinning face. "We'd like that. Thanks."


End file.
